Technology @ Hebron

French 4 students have been learning about traditional French towns called bastides, which were typically designed with a surrounding wall and a central church and marketplace.

With the aim of getting the students to really study the design and layout of these types of towns they had to recreate a complete town in 3D using Tinkercad. They used geometric shapes and holes to draw the individual wall sections and buildings, complete with cutout window and door detailing.

Each student was given a section of the town to recreate and the finished models were then stitched together and printed on the 3D printer. A selection of photographs from the project can be seen below, including a shot of the finished printed model:

The grade 6/7 Latin class have recently been learning about the life of ordinary Romans. For this project each student chose a different profession, from lawyer to soldier, and created a comic book detailing a day in that person’s life.

They researched and planned out their story first and then drew the individual cells by hand. Next they used the camera on their MacBooks to import their drawings, imported these into the excellent Comic Life app, and finally added titles, actions and speech bubbles.

The finished books were stitched together and published online. They can all be read below:

Over the past week the AP Literature class has been working on a technology project to design and create Hamlet faces in 3D. Each student selected a character from the play, sketched out their ideas for their face design and then sculpted them on the library iMacs using the Sculptris app.

Some students based their creations on a simple mask template that was give to them (and created by students in the Computer Science class), and others created their models from scratch. They started by molding the overall shape of the face, added the larger facial features and then zoomed in to create the fine details.

The finished designs were them printed on our 3D printer and will be displayed along side a piece of reflective writing based around the original character they chose.

A selection of photographs and screenshots can be seen below, including some shots of the finished printed models:

During Computer Science class for the past two weeks we have been looking at different concepts, styles, techniques and apps for creating video game 3D models.

We started off by using Tinkercad to create geometric shape-based space crafts and then discussed different ways of creating more organic looking asteroids from the same tools. We then moved into digital sculpture using the Sculpris app, which lets you morph and carve digital clay into the exact shapes you want.

The students used the symmetry tool to create monster heads, complete with facial features and additional detailing to create a finished model that could be viewed at any angle.

We then went back into Tinkercad and talked about human body proportions and created a human template, again using basic geometric shapes. We then transitioned back to Sculpris to try and mold a similar body shape and finally added additional detailing to turn this into a finished  video game monster character.

A selection of screenshots of student work in Tinkercad, Sculptris and Unity (to get an idea of what the final render in a 3D game would look like) can be seen below, as well as a photo of two monster heads printed on our 3D printer:

After a trip to the Body Works exhibition in Portland to research, sketch and find inspiration, sculpture students used the Sculptris 3D modeling software installed in the Art iMac Lab to create 3D body parts.

The software gives you a blank sphere of digital clay to work with and using tools like grab, pinch, smooth and draw, students molded the material using the mouse into the shape of the body part and then added additional detailing such as muscle fibre and veins.

Once complete the models were then exported out of Sculptris and printed using our 3D printer. To finish the project the students will paint and display their models. A selection of pictures of the students working in the lab, their 3D creations and finished prints can be seen below:

For the final part of the Spanish project based around festivals, grade 6/7 students planned out and designed a logo for their festival. We looked at examples, discussed what makes up an eye-catching logo  and students then used the scribble tool in a Google Drawing to sketch out their ideas.

We then switched to Tinkercad and students had to construct their ideas in 3D using shapes, holes and letters, with the idea to vote on the best one and print it using our MakerBot 3D printer. They also take screenshots of their work and will create a blog post to reflect on the class.

A couple of examples of what the students produced can be seen below: